A Letter to My Favorite ExGirlfriend
by oncetherewasawolfhere
Summary: While awaiting trial for the events of Arrival, Shepard pours her feelings out in a heartfelt letter to her favorite asari.  She recalls the friends, rivals, and lovers she made aboard the Normandy, all the while wondering which path the future will take.
1. The Shadow Broker

_**Author's Note:  
><strong>"A Letter to My Favorite Ex-Girlfriend" is a series of ficlets/drabbles/whatever made in an effort to bridge the events between ME: Arrival and ME3. This is based on in-game events and some personal headcanon.**  
><strong>~Mass Effect is owned by Bioware and I do not claim ownership of any of its characters or other associated properties._~

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><p><strong>A Letter to My Favorite Ex-Girlfriend<strong>

_Part One: The Shadow Broker_

She touched her fingertips to the cold windowpane, watching raindrops drip slowly down the glass. Her ghostly reflection revealed a sickness in her that she only just now began to notice. Her skin, once a healthy light tan, was now ashen, unveiling circles of darkness and exhaustion beneath her once fiery dark eyes. Long unrestrained by military doctrine, she had begun to let her dark hair grow, permitting it fall into loose, untamed curls around her face. Likening herself to an ill-kept bum, she turned away from the window in shame.

Valkyrie Shepard thought that a return to Earth and the Alliance would be a return to all that was clean. She had escaped to it before, crawling out of the blood-stained gutters to find hope and salvation among the order of military life. Shepard found her current tenure in Vancouver a lot less redemptive than it had been when she was eighteen, even though she had arrived once more with blood on her hands.

Of course, three-hundred thousand bodies bleed far more than a single corpse.

Slowly, the former commander paced the floor of her darkened cell, unsure what to do with her free time. Just weeks before, she could have taken the elevator down to the engineering deck of the Normandy for a quick game of poker or to sweet-talk Zaeed Massani into telling some of his stories, not that it was hard to do. However, those options were far out of the question. All she had was her mostly empty room and the storm just beyond the glass.

Dejected, she flung herself onto the rough sheets of her bed and eyed a small desk. She had taken few personal possessions from aboard the Normandy, which now sat beside a dated computer that Anderson managed to secure for her. Surviving arrest were her battered helmet, her dog-tags, and a few picture frames that cycled through the faces of her lost crew like a carousel. Kaidan Alenko, her former right hand man. Kasumi Goto, her trusted confidant. Thane Krios, the alien she had swiftly fallen for. Liara T'Soni. . .

Shepard felt her heart halt in her chest. Liara had been many things to her. At first, a pet project, a person she wanted to see come out of her shell. Then she was a lover, and a damn good one at that. They then settled into bitterness and deception, then finally forgiveness. Now, she was like a sister to Shepard, a sister she could not see or talk to or even begin to think about communicating with.

The need to speak to the asari gripped Shepard by the lungs. It might end the bitter taste of loneliness that settled on her tongue. Liara may have been the Shadow Broker, but she certainly wasn't so out of reach that Shepard could not grasp at her. If there was a will, there was a way, and if anyone had will, it was Shepard.

Shepard sat up, roused the computer from sleep mode, and readied her word processing software. She hit a snag the moment her eyes saw a blank document before her; Shepard was no wordsmith. Hell, she didn't even technically graduate from high school. She could give a rousing speech, formulate a plan of attack on the battlefield, and kick a krogan in the quad, but her keyboard was nothing more than a jumbled mass of incoherent letters.

Shepard could only start simply and move on from there.

"Liara,

I don't even know where to begin. I'm sure with you being the Shadow Broker and all, you know what's been going on planetside. To put it bluntly, I've been all but blacklisted. I lost my titles, my rank. Hell, I'm surprised they didn't take back my Star of Terra. But I suppose I should be lucky that they didn't throw me to the batarians. God knows I deserve it, but I'm glad to be a prisoner if it means I get to keep my life.

Of course, no one wants to even hear the word Reaper out of my mouth. I have this kid named Vega working with me, and I think he at least entertains the notion. Good kid, but a bit of an ass kisser. Reminds me a bit of a stocky Kaidan, but not as cute.

Things feel empty around here. Maybe it's because I spent so long working alone when the Normandy wore Cerberus colors, and I'm not used to an Alliance facility. Remember how I used to say boot camp was like prison? Well, I can't remember it bothering me this much when I was in my twenties. Maybe I've changed too much since then. Call me crazy, but I've been worrying about you lately along with the rest of my crew. I'm not used to being this hands off. You know that the closest thing I had to a family was the Normandy crew. If the Reapers brought me anything good, it was you, and Garrus, and Tali, and Thane, and everyone else I shared that ship with (or I guess that Joker shared the ship with). It's strange to know that they're all gone. I knew when I collected my crew that I had no right to keep them after the mission was over, but I hadn't prepared myself for how much I'd miss them in the end. The first to go was Jack, and I will admit I didn't handle that one well. . ."


	2. Subject Zero

**A Letter to My Favorite Ex Girlfriend**

_Part Two: Subject Zero  
><em>

"...The whole system was lost, including the lives of its three-hundred thousand inhabitants."

Silence hovered in the air like a thick blanket of smog. Jacob crossed his arms and looked down at the floor in the direction of Tali's feet. Garrus' mandible hung open, allowing an airless "By the Spirits" escape. Thane's lips were pressed tightly together, his eyes growing wide as he waited for his _siha_'s final words on the matter. Shepard's eyes swept across the briefing room, engaging each of her crew for a moment before moving on. She swallowed hard and looked straight ahead.

"The next step is not an easy one," she began. "I've discussed it with Admiral Hackett, and it seems like the best way to prevent a human-batarian war is to...well...turn myself in." The team expected this to be the case, but nonetheless their reactions were of shock. In particular, Shepard noticed Jack's expression flutter back and forth between wide-eyed hurt and a tense, angry scowl. She bit the inside of her cheek and felt her lungs tighten, yet she continued. "Over the next week or two, I'll be dismantling the crew of the Normandy." She took a deep breath; that was harder to say than she thought it would be. "I don't want any of you to be implicated in this, so I'm asking you to leave as soon as you're ready to."

"With all do respect, Shepard," Miranda piped up. "You're one of the few who take the reaper threat seriously. How are we supposed to prepare for them without you?"

"You'll need to get the word out yourselves. I have to do this. We can't have the humans and the batarians fighting each other when their energy and resources needs to be used against the reapers. I-I'm only one person. Ultimately, I can be sacrificed if it helps the galaxy."

"She's right," Mordin defended, crossing the room to stand beside his commander. "Lives of few do not supersede the lives of many. Furthermore, splitting up may widen Shepard's influence. Can get the message out there more efficiently."

"That's exactly what I was getting at, Mordin," Shepard said, nodding her head at the salarian. "I have one final order for you all: prepare as many people as you can. Without a doubt, the reapers are coming, and they're coming soon." She stopped and leaned against the conference table, looking for something else to say. All she could think of were empty words; nothing inspiring, nothing assuring. Shepard looked up, catching Thane's dark gaze. She had seen the Alpha Relay torn apart only hours before; he knew she couldn't hold out much longer. "Think about what I've said here. You're all dismissed."

Slowly, her teammates filed out in pairs, filtering back to their respective posts on the Normandy. Thane waited for the room to sufficiently empty, watching as Shepard hovered over the table, rocking back and forth on her heels. The door slid shut behind the last of the crew, leaving them alone.

"This is a foolish question, but are you all right?"

Shepard lifted her head, giving him a quizzical expression. The corners of her lips lifted. Thane knew this trick well. She had the same reaction after she returned from the first Normandy's crash site. If something bothered her, she brushed it aside as if it were dust.

"I'm _fine_," she said. "To be honest, I was kind of nervous you'd be mad at me. I disappeared for _two days_. I don't think we've spent more than a few hours of shore leave apart since we've met."

"Mad?" he repeated in a half-whisper. "No, I was worried, and I'm worried now _siha_." Thane stopped. She had pulled a section of her bottom lip into her mouth. He could tell she was biting it hard, distracting herself from the ordeal that it was to keep a straight face. "You can be open with me if you want. You don't need to be strong for me like you do with the crew. I'd prefer you don't."

Her face relaxed but didn't melt away to reveal her true sensibilities. Instead, she pushed away from the table and walked into his chest, placing her arms around his trunk.

"I'll be okay, Thane. I'm just tired."

He locked his arm around her waist and faced towards the door, leading her away from the last vestiges of the meeting before. Thane's goal was simple: get her up to her room and get a strong drink into her -keep her away from the inner workings of the Normandy and her crew. It was the best way he knew to calm her nerves.

A voice from in front caught the lovers, reaching them as the laboratory's door slid shut.

"Shepard!" The commander tossed her head over her shoulder, only to be met with a blunt force that tore her away from Thane's arm. She twisted around, falling back into the corner of the elevator and knocking her head against the wall. Hunched over, Jack stood in the doorway of the elevator, her face contorted into an expression of perplexed rage.

"Jack? What the hell's gotten into you?"

"What the hell's gotten into _you_?" She shouted, her words labored from physical exertion. "I thought we were going to take the fight to them, but you're backing out like a pussy."

"Pussy? I'm sacrificing something you couldn't begin to understand-"

"Why do this? The Alliance can't touch you. The batarians can't touch you! What are you afraid of, Shepard?"

Baring her teeth, Shepard glared and wiped a trickle of blood away from her nostril. Lowly, she hissed, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill you unless you get off my ship."

Jack's eyes narrowed, her eyebrows nearly touching her cheeks.

"Fuck you."

Shepard pulled herself to her feet and charged. She was no biotic, but she didn't need the extra power to knock Jack into oblivion. A blue wave crashed over Jack's skin, ready for the impact of Shepard's balled fist. The hit never came. Instead, she collided with a barrier, it's source the drell beside her.

"Back off, Thane. I can handle this."

"_Siha_, you're not thinking clearly," he pleaded. "Stop this."

"I want her off of this fucking ship," she screamed. "_Now_."

The aura cloaking Jack dissipated, leaving the biotic wearing only a disappointed scowl. Her makeup glistened and drooped in the corners of her eyes. Jack took a final, hard gaze at Shepard before turning on her heel and disappearing into the elevator.

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><p>"To be honest Liara, I spent the rest of the evening in bed with Thane Krios and George Dickel. I can't believe I lost it like that. I was just so...so tired. I know that's not a good excuse, but I...I just couldn't handle it. Not after what I went through that day.<p>

"I hope that someday Jack can forgive me for how I acted. I always admired the way she questioned everything, and she wouldn't have been herself if she didn't question me too.

"Maybe she was right. Maybe I shouldn't have given up this easily...God knows I can't do anything about the Reapers now. But my crew is strong. They can take care of themselves, and they'll be ready when they finally do arrive.


End file.
